Ironclad Devotion

Writers are often a neurotic, self-doubting lot, so many of us long for validation. However, any validation is only temporary, and the best we can do is try to develop a healthy relationship with those desires.

The vast majority of us will write more than one story during our life, so at some point in our career, we’ll have to decide what we’re going to write next. The question then becomes, how do we decide?

Authors who writes series often see more sales and success, but for writers who struggle to plan stories in advance, planning out a big series might be impossible. Let’s take a look at our options for planning series in advance.

I’m looking forward to seeing my friends again, and I’ll be doing my first book signing, but the stress? Ugh. It’s a good thing I have my handy-dandy ultimate packing list from the last time I went to RWA National.

A recent article about unlikable heroines pointed out that likability is often more of a problem for female characters than for male characters. While I’ve learned how to minimize those issues with my characters, the problem still rankles me.

Writers are often a neurotic, self-doubting lot, and many of us hope for validation as a means of overcoming that doubt. We never want to think about how that validation is only temporary, but the best we can do is try to create a healthy relationship with our validation desires.

We’re almost to the new year, so let’s take those thoughts of new beginnings over to our stories. Most writers have probably struggled with a story’s opening, but if we start from the big picture and move to the specific, we might have an easier time finding the right beginning for our story.

Yesterday marked the release of my fourth book, Ironclad Devotion, and I think I’m going to collapse now. This release marks the end of my “master plan,” also known as my daisy-chain release schedule. I first came up with that plan about a year ago, and I can’t quite believe it actually worked.